The subject of abortion is always touchy, and for a long time most filmmakers simply avoided it in their movies. But times have changed, and we’re seeing more that are unafraid to lend their voice to the discussion. Writer/director Eliza Hittman joined the chorus with her Sundance-favorite Never Rarely Sometimes Always, which tackles the topic from an angle that will be very real to a great number of women in certain conservative communities.
Hittman’s film centers on two young women who must journey across Pennsylvania state lines into New York City so that one can deal with an unplanned pregnancy. With rules restricting access to legal abortions prevalent in a great many red states, the film hits on a hot-button issue and is sure to draw attention.
Debuting at Sundance, the film earned accolades including a Special Jury Prize for Neo-Realism. It then moved to Berlin and met even greater acclaim, taking the prestigious Silver Bear Award. Basically, this is not one to miss, and may surpass Hittman’s previous films Beach Rats and It Felt Like Love.
The chances of Big Bird breaking off a piece of a Kit-Kat bar just went up 1000%. According to Collider, Chance the Rapper may be heading to Sesame Street, joining Anne Hathaway in the movie based on everyone’s favorite educational program. Directed by Portlandia creator Jonathan Krisel, the story finds the Street gang teaming with history show host Sally Hawthorne (Hathaway) to prove their neighborhood exists, and thus return to it after being expelled. It’s unclear what Chance’s role would be, but hopefully it’s better than the werewolf pizza guy he played in Slice. Prepare to head to Sesame Street on January 14th 2022.
Collider also has info on Steven Soderbergh’s next film, Kill Switch, which is now adding Jon Hamm to the cast. He’s in talks to join Don Cheadle, Sebastian Stan, and fellow new addition Cedric the Entertainer in the 1950s-set crime film about a trio of Detroit criminals who get more than they bargained for when they commit a home invasion. Hamm will play a cop on the criminals’ trail. The film was written by Ed Solomon (Men in Black), and as of now there’s no set start date. Hamm will be seen next opposite Tom Cruise in Top Gun: Maverick.
Prison escape movies are only as interesting as the escapees themselves, and the cleverness of their escape route. So it’s not surprising that Escape from Pretoria, which boasts a bearded and nervous Daniel Radcliffe as real-life anti-apartheid activist Tim Jenkin, is only half of an entertaining film. Jenkin’s amazingly daring methods, executed in secret and under extreme pressure, are occasionally tense but not quite enough to cover for dull characterization and repetition that close off this promising drama.
In 1979 apartheid South Africa, Jenkin and his fellow activist partner Stephen Lee (Daniel Webber) do what the racist establishment deem unforgivable; they dared to launch a non-lethal leaflet bombing in the city streets. Other than a few shrieks from the white, privileged 13% who ruled the country, nobody was hurt. However, Jenkin and Lee were quickly captured and sentenced to the all-white maximum security Pretoria Prison where the racist guards are none too happy taking care of men they see as traitors to the race.
Escape from Pretoria isn’t your typical prison break flick; action is at a minimum, there are no tunnels to dig, no riots or warring gangs. The plan enacted by Jenkin is ingenious, dangerous, and risky in its execution. Using bits of stolen wood, Jenkins meticulously crafts a series of keys to open the many doors leading to their freedom on the outside. The grind of this process has nothing to do with Jenkin’s nightly key-carving routines; it’s the daily drag of prison life that is the biggest threat. The days crawl forward, and it’s easy to get swept in the minutia of it. The guards are all a-holes, and cell searches are a constant hazard, but overall the conflict is in the mind and not from an external threat.
South African filmmaker Francis Annan sheds most of the political context, a misstep considering there’s so much to explore. Jenkin was a loyal member of the ANC, the same group led by Nelson Mandela, and was rotting away in prison at the same time Mandela was held on Robben Island. Among the other inmates Jenkin encounters are other revolutionaries (led by Ian Hart as Denis Goldberg), who felt an escape could be detrimental to the movement and weren’t willing to take that kind of gamble. Overall, there’s so much attention on the details of the escape that these men, and that includes Jenkin, are under-written and flat.
That said, there are some truly gripping sequences, with tension that Annan and his cast make palpable. Radcliffe, looking slight in frame and always on the edge of a breakdown, has a tremendously nervy scene where he tries to fetch a wayward key with a piece of gum. While the details of Jenkin’s escape are noted in his book, they don’t lend themselves to being depicted cinematically which leads to a lot of repetition. A more stylish director may have been able to do something about that, but Annan’s skills are elsewhere. The claustrophobic atmosphere he creates is seen weighind down all of the men, but mostly on the crew’s third member, Leonard Fontaine (played by Mark Leonard Winter), whose torment is exacerbated by the guards’ cruel handling of his son’s annual visit. Yes, annual.
Sweat-inducing tension isn’t Escape from Pretoria‘s problem. It’s a lack of attention paid to the human drama and a disregard for the politics that caused such harsh imprisonments to happen in the first place.
Looks like Jason Statham won’t be hanging out in Toronto with his Hobbs & Shaw pal Kevin Hart. The bald Brit action star has dropped out of buddy comedy The Man from Toronto, just weeks before production was to kick off. The film would’ve reunited him with Hart and his The Expendables 3 director Patrick Hughes.
The reason for Statham’s exit appear to be “creative”, with Deadline saying that he wanted the movie to be R-rated, which Sony Pictures wasn’t having. But there may be more to this story because Statham promptly ditched his agency reps, as well, so he’s really unhappy about something.
The Man from Toronto will move forward with Hart, Hughes, and a new actor to replace Statham. Hart plays Teddy, the biggest screwup in all of New York, who gets mistaken for the world’s deadliest assassin after an AirBNB mix-up.
It’s safe to say after three blockbuster John Wick movies, as well as coordinating the fight scenes for Birds of Prey, Chad Stahelski can write his own ticket. While we assume John Wick 4 is next on the list, Paramount may have given Stahelski something else to do first.
Stahelski is being eyed to direct an untitled action film with some significant talent behind it. A Quiet Place producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller are on board, with a script by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles writers Andre Nemec and Josh Appelbaum. Details are scarce, but the high-concept pic is said to capture “the spirit of the great car movies, with a unique central relationship at its center.”
What is this? A Christine remake?
So what we don’t know if how this movie affects John Wick 4. Lionsgate has already set a May 2021 release date, which means they can’t wait around too long for Stahelski to be ready. It’s also possible this film comes after John Wick, which could interfere with Stahelski’s possible Highlander reboot. We’ll just have to wait and see which way this goes.
I thought about letting this one go because, honestly, I can’t the thought of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker anymore. And the more various novelized companions attempt to explain the many gaps in that disappointing film, the more of a mess it appears to be. Now the complete novelization is out and it only makes the return of Emperor Palpatine more nonsensical than before.
So the big question surrounding Palpatine is…well, what the fuck is he, anyway? How did Palpatine, who died decades earlier, somehow manage to survive all of these years in secret? Sure, we’ve heard about the Sith being able to cheat death through “unnatural” means, but this was ridiculous. Well, the answer is pretty shitty…
According to the novelization (via ScreenRant), the Palpatine we saw defeated by Rey was a close, and not the original Emperor. Yeah, a clone.
“All the vials were empty of liquid save one, which was nearly depleted. Kylo peered closer. He’d seen this apparatus before, too, when he’d studied the Clone Wars as a boy. The liquid flowing into the living nightmare before him was fighting a losing battle to sustain the Emperor’s putrid flesh.
“‘What could you give me?’ Kylo asked. Emperor Palpatine lived, after a fashion, and Kylo could feel in his very bones that this clone body sheltered the Emperor’s actual spirit. It was an imperfect vessel, though, unable to contain his immense power. It couldn’t last much longer.”
Ugh. First of all, using a clone is just such a cheap, easy way out. It takes zero imagination to come up with that explanation. Why not just have him be the real Palpatine, but say the previous version we saw die in Return of the Jedi was the clone? Or an imposter? Also, why not just explain this in the Goddamn movie? The biggest thing I hate most about The Rise of Skywalker is that it cuts so many narrative corners that the plot makes no sense. It’s like JJ Abrams threw his hands up and said: “Oh well, the books can cover that.”
The Rise of SKywalker is going to be picked apart for eternity, but for me this is the end. Somebody hit me up when they announce a new movie that’ll help me forget this one ever happened.
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything new on Sony’s WWII film The Nightingale, which initially had Michelle McLaren on board to direct. That was back in 2016, and the project stalled out despite having sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning in the lead roles. Sony still has big plans for it, not only naming a new director but giving it a holiday 2020 release date.
Sony has set Melanie Laurent to direct The Nightingale, making this a reunion with her Galveston star Elle Fanning. Along with that, Sony has given a Christmas 2020 release date to the adaptation of Kristin Hannah’s bestseller about two sisters who fight to survive the German occupation of France during WWII.
Laurent directs based on a script by Dana Stevens (For Love of the Game), but she’s best known for her on-screen roles in Inglourious Basterds, Now You See Me, and 6 Underground. Having Sony give her such a prestigious holiday spot comes with its own pressures. The success they had on that date with Greta Gerwig’s Little Women isn’t far from anybody’s mind.
So the basic premise behind Banana Split will sound both familiar and a little complicated. The indie darling centers on a pair of high school girls who become best friends despite having something in common that should make them rivals: one is dating the other’s hunky ex-boyfriend.
What makes Banana Split different is this isn’t a movie about the ultimate destruction of their friendship. It’s instead about how they keep the boy stuff in the background and focus on being sisters, although the movie still has its fair share of guy candy for them to look at.
The film stars Hannah Marks, Liana Liberato, and Dylan Sprouse, with Benjamin Kasulke making his feature directing debut. Marks also co-wrote the script with Joey Power, after they previously collaborated on the 2018 rom-com After Everything.
I’m getting serious Never Going Back vibes off this one, and if it’s half as sweet and funny we’re in for a treat.
Banana Split hits theaters, VOD, and digital on March 27th.
Sony have a pretty good reason to put their faith in Phil Lord and Chris Miller, who had their first huge hit with the animated blockbuster Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The Jump Street flicks would follow, along with a little something called Into the Spider-Verse. And now they’re back with Connected, an animated film that may seem easy to dismiss on the surface, but has a lot more going on than meets the eye.
Produced by Lord and Miller with Mike Rianda (Gravity Falls) directing, Connected centers on a Dad who hopes to connect with his tech-obsessed kids during one’s trip to college. Their journey is turned upside down when artificial intelligence goes rogue and tries to conquer the world, as technology is wont to do.
The voice cast is strong, too, with Abbi Jacobson, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Eric Andre, Rianda, and Oscar-winner Olivia Colman.
SYNOPSIS: Sony Pictures Animation’s Connected is an original animated comedy from director Mike Rianda (Gravity Falls) and producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Lego Movie), about an everyday family’s struggle to relate while technology rises up around the world! When Katie Mitchell (voiced by Abbi Jacobson), a creative outsider, is accepted into the film school of her dreams, her plans to meet “her people” at college are upended when her nature-loving dad Rick (voiced by Danny McBride) determines the whole family should drive Katie to school together and bond as a family one last time. Katie and Rick are joined by the rest of the family, including Katie’s wildly positive mom Linda (voiced by Maya Rudolph), her quirky little brother Aaron (voiced by Mike Rianda), and the family’s delightfully chubby pug Monchi for the ultimate family road trip. Suddenly, the Mitchells’ plans are interrupted by a tech uprising: all around the world, the electronic devices people love – from phones, to appliances, to an innovative new line of personal robots – decide it’s time to take over. With the help of two friendly malfunctioning robots, the Mitchells will have to get past their problems and work together to save each other and the world!
If you’ve been enjoying the recent surge of movies about cult leaders and cultish behavior, IFC Midnight’s The Other Lamb may be for you. Starring Raffey Cassidy (The Killing of a Sacred Deer) and Michiel Huisman (Game of Thrones), the film centers on a young woman who begins to question her cult and the teachings of its messiah-like leader.
The film is directed by Małgorzata Szumowska, the Polish filmmaker behind 2011’s Elles with Juliette Binoche and Joanna Kulig. Worth seeking that one out.
SYNOPSIS: For her entire life, the cult she was born into has been all that teenage Selah (Raffey Cassidy) has known. Along with a band of similarly cloistered young women she lives seemingly unstuck in time, cut off from modern society in a remote forest commune presided over by a man called Shepherd (Michiel Huisman), a controlling, messiah-like figure with a frightening dark side. But when her insular world is rocked by a series of nightmarish visions and disturbing revelations, Selah begins to question everything about her existence—including her allegiance to the increasingly dangerous Shepherd. Awash in images of primal, dreamlike dread, this provocative fable is a haunting vision of adolescent awakening and revolt.
The Other Lamb opens in theaters and VOD on April 3rd.
